larry jaffe                      

Of what is friendship made     8.21.99
False imprint
Hip hoopsters
Nazi charming suit                 5.3.99
Bombs away over L.A.
look ma no hands                  4.1.99

Of what is friendship made

This woman was shot from
Wings made of clay
Yet she still flies
With wordful oratorio
She stands by neither
Victim or prey
Her words speak
Of bravery
A silence that
Her mouth never utters
But I read between the lines
To find the place tulips were planted
And honeydew melons wrestle in the sea
She is not unlike a farmer
Her word seeds pressed to her bosom
Tilling the soil with sweat soaked passion
And I can believe I claim to know
Her from other distant lands
Where pharaohs roamed
And jews were meant to die
And perhaps then too
She gave me loving cup of water
So parched my thirst with ridicule
She looked at me with eyes
So wide and wounded
Knowing my despair
Praying for my joy
And musing with the muses

False imprint

He spoke to me
In almost fatherly tones
His voice more drone than whine
Mixed with some ventriloquist trick
That made it seem like his words
Were advancing from heaven above
He spoke to me
About the wonders of the rapture
Advancing on the sanitarium
Where he lived and held
Quiet solitude with leftover godhead
And wisdom flowed like
Morphine drip divining his passage
Between two eternal moments
Tied in cellophane bondage
A telephonic epiphany leading him astray
He spoke to me
His eyes cued up for their next move
In his holy war against inhumanity
And I never wondered about his veracity
Only his tone of language dictated
By foreign powers to entrap and lull
The novice from being too novel
I would gaze into his eyes for hours
Even though the reality was seconds
So mesmerizing the tone of anxious warrior
Put out to pasture by so-called well-meaning
Practitioners of ancient arts and sciences
In whose hands his mind laid bare
Cut open like biological study
Without spiritual significance
To a new-found folklore
That reduced man to fodder
And the brain to disease
And even with half his intellect in tatters
He winded a resilience that surprised even them
How could he proceed with only half a mind
They wondered in scientific procedure
Culled from journals and annals of historic priesthood
He spoke to me
Of how they tried to shock him into docility and
He absorbed their cattle prod good humor
Judging each by the amount of voltage
They insulted into his being
As he engaged the rapture of heavenly descent
I wanted to correct him
To tell him that he meant heavenly ascent
He spoke to me
With a cleverness ill-conceived
Nevertheless I could see he meant what he said
His eyes tortured with longing
Trying to touch some facility
That had long been cut away
In futile medical aberration
That dictates surgical precision
In place of healing
He spoke to me
Of new found lore
Caught in the precipice
Of his own misconception
How he rose above the cruelty of mankind
Defined only by robust killing machines
That infected populace with religious fervor
Worshipping false gods of self
With little time for detail
He spoke to me
With wonder and miracles outstretched
How he preached god in place of machine
How he delved into spirit worship
As the jackals caught his suffering
Between the jaws of civilization
They are all vampires he said
Sucking the sweetness out of society
His head downcast
The spittle shoveled to the sides of his lips
And in moments of alacrity
He licked it away
As if cleaning his own wounds
He spoke to me
But I could no longer watch or listen
To this mockery of man
Capsized on planet earth
A bogey amongst the abducted
A spiritual misnomer
A marionette without strings
A man without a brain
Living on heart and soul
He spoke to me
Of how they cut his mind
Into little strips to inflict him
With inlaid prejudice
Tirelessly working his brain with ice pick cruelty
Tempered with chemical indifference
To silence this rebellious mind
He spoke to me
And it was miracle that
He could even speak at all
They could never quiet this gallant fool.

Hip hoopsters

It all started on the playground
Shooting hoops with friends
There were five Larry’s
In our neighborhood
This time three waiting
High School bus sojourn
We played horse
A basketball game
Of ghostlike pretensions
Winner takes all
To the next morning contest
We aimed potshots at the basket
Without acclaim a
Time passing ritual
Suddenly
Larry Mohlman shouted
At Larry Kempster
You’re just like a Jew
You can only do one thing
Cause he kept shooting lay-ups
And was not basketball worldly and wise
Did not diversify his shots
And kept driving persistence
To the backboard
I looked on in disbelief
Just as suddenly realizing why Molhman
Always picked on me since age of six
So with hook shot in hand
Set shot from perimeter
And jump shot from downtown
This Larry
Meaning Jaffe
Asked that Larry
Meaning Mohlman
If I shot just like a Jew too
He did not answer
Turning red as his hair
As I proceeded to
Take him to the cleaners
While all I could think
About were showers

© 1999 lgjaffe

Nazi charming suit

He wore a nazi charming suit
To protect him from the forces of evil
That ran renegade in his neighborhood
The only armband he wore
Was tattooed on his forehead
Where his mother told him
His lies were written
They were not numbers
But suggestions of indiscretion
That belied his firm beliefs
In justice and fairness
So he carefully dressed himself
In this suit perfectly pressed
For the occasion of his daily mitzvah
He rang songs of freedom
From the belles he cavorted with
He drank from the trough of triumph
With the rest of his family
He guided his missiles of ill will
To neo-nazi sphincters
Poisoning them with his own wrath
The suit was wool worsted
That was hot in the summer
And cold in the winter
He drank from the tap of infamy
Careful to not drip on his haberdashery
Lest it be corrupted with greed
And his secrets found out
How he longed to discover truth
In diabolical cemeteries that declared
The dead alive and allowed them
To walk unaided in the valley he shielded
With his drape cloth
Unfurling his daggers to the tune
Of the march of the Christian soldiers
Who was this man in idol belief
Staining his bed clothes with blasphemy
He was the man who wore
Nazi charming suits to ward off the evil empire
Trading his guts for glory in an all out attempt
To harvest the fresh crop of trading cards
Of celebrity resistance going to the highest bidder
Souls bartered in New York relief
The age-old game of spiritual 3-card Monty
Played by dowager widows
Trumping their hole card to their partner
Life goes on with tradeoffs and compromises
Bewitching the populace to one loss too many
And he still wears this crumpled suit
Signifying his willingness to play the game
And sellout his soulful winnings in order to survive
He rails against god and other idioms
That he senses have lost their senses
in a cruel game Of divide and conquer
The older gods taking one part of the playing field
The young upstart deity claiming the other goal
When is half-time he wonders
He needs to go to the restroom facilities
And to the refreshment stand and buy a snack
Lord knows he needs refreshment
He drips combustible fluids onto his trouser leg
And fears immolation of his beliefs
Covered in tearstained agony, wool, concession and special consideration
He is witness to the dismemberment of civilization
And not the innocent bystander he claims to be
Having sold out his maturity with a bottle of Clairol
And a shot of Tanqueray
His suit has become his uniform
He searches in the desperate faces turning away from him
For signs of weakness or maturity
They dress like he does
Conforming to their battle scars so as to not be rendered inoperable
Playing dead to the combine so they will not be blown
To the next plane of existence

He has charmed many a nazi with this suit
They see him as one of theirs
He wonders why his stomach turns.

Saturday, April 24, 1999

Bombs away over L. A.

We huddled around
Our respective coffees
Café au le
Cappuccino
Café late’
Designer fate out of our hands
Our eyes sublime
Drinking in the
Redundant Los Angeles sunshine
The news reflected from the paper
Was anything but good
The President of these United States
Was being called to task
By An International
Human
Rights
Tribunal
The mayor of Los Angeles
Was being called to task
By An International
Human
Rights
Tribunal
Undocumented sources
Reliable witnesses
Paid informants
Served notice on
Respective majesties
Reported crimes
In Technicolor
Hollywood noir
To United Nations
To Amnesties International
To The World Press
To Rupert Murdock
To Mickey Mouse himself
They were reliable
Dependable
Trustworthy
Almost desirable
Eyewitnesses to
Witting ruthlessness
As performed by the laidback Gestapo
Of the LAPD
On a consistent basis
Of hapless minorities
That had grown majority
And only blue suits kept their vision abated
Only blue suits kept the populace subdued
Rounding up their dreams
And prosecuting their nightmares
To the fullest extent of the law
Building citadel prisons
With dungeon precision
To incarcerate
To alienate
To eliminate
The so-called criminal element
In cries of three strikes you’re out
Keeping their visions under lock and key
Imprisoned in the fortress of ineptitude
Solitary confinement for imagination
But the world was no longer
Looking the other way
Their faces turned to L.A.
Telling the mayor to toe the mark
Telling the president to not cross the line
But they pledged sovereignty
Not idle chatter
The United States of America
Was given deadline to cease and desist
The laurel wreathes of peace extended for the moment
But President and Mayor joining hands in sovereign promise
Refused with utter contempt to change ways
Homegrown and rooted in tradition
The United Nations under the direction of the Security Council
Canceling vetoes of its members
Declared Los Angeles fair game
To peace keeping Bombers
Tinsel town under attack
Shouted headlines in black and sharp white
Parker Center was ground zero
Bombs away over L.A.
Tell me it ain’t so Mickey
Tell me it ain’t so Donald
Goofy
Pluto
Popeye
Where are you when we need you
It’s all illusion anyway
It’s just another movie
Another cartoon comedy
Another siren goes off
Its air raid not cops
Bombs rain down on L.A.
The last headline spoke
Out of the blue
And the haze of Los Angeles sunshine
We are a sovereign nation
The President said
This is L.A. the Mayor said
City Hall destroyed the headline read
We are selecting only military targets
The combined forces reported
Paramount studios is forever in reruns
Sony is only a digital memory
The lion is gone from MGM
Universal is just another ride in their theme park
Disney is Mickey Mouse
Tinsel town detinselized…
The center of evil has been destroyed the BBC shouted!
The center of evil destroyed the BBC shouted!

Monday April 26, 1999

poems © 1999 lgjaffe

"i don't care if it rains or freezes
long as i got my plastic jesus
ridin' on the dashboard of my car...."

look ma no hands

so they give
me this choice
at the parishioner
parking lot
i could put
up a defunct
st. christopher medal
or plastic jesus
but no mezuzah
for jew boy blues
like i suddenly
would be able
to drive without
hands if i carried protection
from sainted spirits
and what not
what to do
st. christopher lost
his membership
in the all saints club
probably forgot to pay
his dues or some such
and i was worried about
jesus having a melt down
in hot desert sun
so i opted for one
of them there
little tree things
that hang from
the rear view mirror
might as well
be druid driving
down the tarmac
and to top it off
keeps the car
smelling good
case i get bad
case of road kill
but then i heard it
on the radio
which misfired into
some good times
baptist faith healing
radio station programming
type thing
i could for an
affordable price
get my very own life-size
replica of jesus
in glow in the dark plastic
so everyone could see
who was at my side
and shucks i could
just set him right there
in the passenger seat
and have jesus ride shotgun for me
just as good as
god being my copilot
besides jesus was a jew
and we both could
sing those jew boy blues
screaming down the highway
to our mutual destiny
as an extra added bonus
i could ride in the
carpool lane

© 1998 lgjaffe

larry jaffe
poet
1954 Hillhurst Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Voice: 323.666.5600
Fax: 323.666.8698
http://www.larryjaffe.com

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